ipl-logo

Cherokee Indians Beliefs

1027 Words5 Pages

Ranging from the south Alleghenies mountain range all the way down to the south of Georgia and far west of Alabama, lived the Cherokee Indians. They were a powerful detached tribe of the Iroquoian family and were commonly called Tsaragi which translates into "cave people." This tribe was very prominent in what is now called the U.S, but over time has been split up or run out of their land because of social or political encounters with the new settlers from Europe. Despite the dispersion or the split amongst this tribe, they still obtained their core religious beliefs, practices and ceremonies. Their detailed belief system, fundamental beliefs, significant meanings, and their connection to song and dance make up their religious system. The early …show more content…

Many traditional Cherokees believe that after one dies, his or her soul often continues to live on as a ghost (Cherokee Indian Religion). They are supposed to have the ability to materialize where some but not all can see them. More fundamental beliefs that they follow is that good is rewarded, and evil is punished, and witchcraft among the Cherokee does not resemble that of non-Indian cultures (Cherokee Indian Religion). Even though they follow a strict belief system and everything had a purpose and was thought out, there are times when punishments cannot be explained. When someone does something right, it is rewarded either by being ranked higher or having individual honors or privileges within the society. On the other hand, when someone does something punishable, it is not taken lightly. In fact, that person suffers severe consequences because he or she is believed to be overtaken by evil spirits. To fully understand witchcraft amongst the Cherokee, one has to realize that using medicine, conjuring, and witchcraft have remained an integral part of Cherokee culture even up to the present day (Cherokee Indian Religion). They have used medication as a whole to help with healing people within their …show more content…

This is the primary way the Cherokees stayed in contact with their gods and praised them. The men would sing the songs and the women would keep the beat to the songs as people danced around the eternal fire. When they danced the are singing and praying to the creator, which is very similar to the Christian faith that is today (Buskirk). Cherokees today still practice the same way as their ancestors did, but there is a more significant connection with Christian beliefs and Cherokee beliefs. "Many Cherokees today go to church just as any other person does. I, personally, went to both the dances and churches while I was growing up", said Kathy Van Buskirk who is a Cherokee from Oklahoma (Buskirk). Because the Cherokees live so close to the earth, each native tribe with the Cherokee tribe are very religious. This is why most all of them recognize the belief system as an integral part of the day to day

Show More
Related
708 Words | 3 Pages

Choctaws take great pride in their tribe. They are known mostly from the fact they were more civilized than most of the tribes in that era. They are a tribe with a solid foundation on, Faith, Family, and Culture. The name “Choctaw” derives from a legend of a

Read More
882 Words | 4 Pages

History 1301 Victoria Bergt John Ehle’s book Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation [New York: Anchor Books, 1988] attempts to answer the entail question “Why did the Cherokees move?” He sketches the events and people who led to the legendary Trail of Tears, the removal of the Cherokee Nation to “Indian Territory” where they would “never” be bothered by the whites in their live again Trial of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation has 22 chapters, beginning with some backgrounds of the Cherokees and the birthplace of the Cherokee Nation, also the birth of the Cherokee leader, Ridge. Ehle teaches us the traditional rituals the Cherokees do in the first couple of chapters and ending with

Read More
1052 Words | 5 Pages

The Sioux were a less developed society of Native Americans than the Iroquois. They didn’t normally establish permanent settlements because their lives revolved around hunting buffalo and following their herds everywhere they went. The Sioux had an interesting perspective of the supernatural world – they believed it was not separate from the physical world and that it was simply too complex of a thing for humans to comprehend. There was not necessarily an all-powerful being, but there was something they referred to as the “animating force,” called Wakan Tanka, which was responsible for the existence of all things, and that all things were not “real,” but instead “manifestations” that appeared real, yet everything had a living, spiritual value, and all things were connected. The Sioux held a strong belief that they and the buffalo shared a special relationship in the grand scheme of things and for this reason, though they hunted them for food, they held a deep respect for the animals.

Read More
1518 Words | 7 Pages

Theda Perdue`s Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835, is a book that greatly depicts what life had been like for many Native Americans as they were under European Conquering. This book was published in 1998, Perdue was influenced by a Cherokee Stomp Dance in northeastern Oklahoma. She had admired the Cherokee society construction of gender which she used as the subject of this book. Though the title Cherokee Women infers that the book focuses on the lives of only Cherokee women, Perdue actually shines light upon the way women 's roles affected the Native cultures and Cherokee-American relations. In the book, there is a focus on the way that gender roles affected the way different tribes were run in the 1700 and 1800`s.

Read More
379 Words | 2 Pages

They did not respect the white men who tried to impose their Christianity faith upon them. To the Shawnee “The Great Spirit” would take care of them and used “magic” to cure themselves. They used remedies of herbs and sunlight to ward away the spirits of the evil that were inside the body. The fact was the Shawnee did believe in witches. Witches to them were not healers.

Read More
1078 Words | 5 Pages

The best example of these is the group residing in neighboring Cherokee county, which the Snowbirds refer to as “white Cherokees” (The). Through marriage with whites and other races, these “white Cherokee” are no longer full-blooded or even half-blooded native and are somewhat resented by the full-blooded Cherokee. The Snowbirds cite their lack of upholding Cherokee traditions or language as one of their reasons for resenting them (The). In addition, Cherokee county is more of a tourist trap than a historical landmark. It misrepresents Cherokee culture, in that the regalia, garb, and living conditions presented are more characteristic of Plains Indian culture than Cherokee culture (The).

Read More
203 Words | 1 Pages

After reading the Cherokee origin myth it demonstrates that they value the four directions, North, South, East, and West. In the story the directions are named “sacred”, showing that they must have a great deal of importance to the people. The directions were also used to divide the barren land at the beginning of the myth. Without the directions people would have had no way of knowing where they were or where they were going. The directions assisted people in their travels as well.

Read More
472 Words | 2 Pages

The Nation had a system of matrilineal heritage, meaning that clan membership was passed down through the mother. “Cherokee women could also introduce new people into the Nation through their marital choices.” (Yarbrough 387) This gave Cherokee women the power to integrate outsiders into the Cherokee Nation, and thus made them key in treaties between Cherokees and Europeans/Americans. As a result, Cherokee lawmakers passed a multitude of laws to protect their women and regulate their marital choices. However, an alteration to Cherokee marriage law permitted patrilineal heritage of Cherokee membership.

Read More
1352 Words | 6 Pages

The Lakota Sioux, facing pressure to conform to “civilized” norms, adopted a new belief consisting of a central creed, code, and cultus. This

Read More
1065 Words | 5 Pages

Pueblos were representatives of southwest Indian culture. Originally migrating from the Mesa Verde region, they can mostly be found in northwestern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico. While living in compact settlements known as P variations of Kachinas. Modern Puebloans use rooms called kivas for religious rituals. Kivas are square walled and often underground.

Read More
707 Words | 3 Pages

In an article called “Cherokee Towns” it says, “In the historic era beginning around 1700 to near 1800, there were about sixty Cherokee towns and villages in modern North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. Most were located in clusters located on various major watersheds and identified by the British trade based in Charles Town (Charleston), SC, as the Overhill, Valley, Middle, Lower and Out Towns. ”This shows that it takes

Read More
951 Words | 4 Pages

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the Cherokees were going through a time of rebirth and regeneration. After the American Revolution the Cherokees confronted with economic depression. They gave up their homes, villages, towns and hunting grounds to white Americans. Many Cherokees adopted customs, beliefs and lifestyles of white Americans; they profoundly assimilated White culture because in this way they hoped could survive as a nation in their homeland.

Read More
1106 Words | 5 Pages

They are often labeled as uncivilized barbarians, which is a solely false accusation against them. This paper aims to address the similarities between Native American beliefs and the beliefs of other cultures based on The Iroquois Creation Story in order to defeat the stereotype that Natives are regularly defined by. Native Americans are commonly considered uncivilized, savage, and barbarian. Nevertheless, in reality the Natives are not characterized by any of those negative traits, but rather they inhabit positive characteristics such as being wise, polite, tolerant, civilized, harmonious with nature, etc. They have had a prodigious impact on the Puritans

Read More
1124 Words | 5 Pages

Native Americans have a really diverse culture and one report is not enough to talk about all of their cultures. They have fourteen tribes so it is obvious that they will have a lot of different cultures and traditions between all fourteen tribes. It is impossible to have fourteen tribes with different people and expect them to all believe in the same things so some of them have different beliefs and different traditions. They worshipped a lot of gods and even some of the gods had dolls made for them. Some tribes worshipped the sun or fire or some serpents.

Read More
738 Words | 3 Pages

Their beliefs were rejected by the white-american culture which made it difficult to assimilate or control the tribes by the United States. The U.S. was trying to convert the plains tribes from hunter-gatherers to farmers in the the European-American tradition. Native Americans tends to focus around nature. Their religion includes a number of practices,ceremonies and traditions. Their religion ceremonies included feasts, music, dances, and other performances.

Read More

More about Cherokee Indians Beliefs

Related Topics

Open Document